


Missing on the Inside

by Carmenlire



Series: Tumblr Prompts [18]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassins & Hitmen, M/M, Protective Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 09:59:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15947027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: He takes a deep breath, bellows out, “Run,” and watches in relief as he sees Magnus take off from his peripheral.If he makes it out of this, they’ll talk. If he doesn’t, at least he made it so that Magnus would live another day, so that he wouldn’t have to see Alec get eviscerated by his own blade.He thinks about the past three months and how much had changed. How his ambivalent feelings for Magnus Bane had morphed into desperate love and fervent yearning.





	Missing on the Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue prompt by lightwoodsbanes: "When I look at you, I see my world and that scares the sh*t out of me."

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Goddamnit. _God damn him_. He was a fucking assassin. A killer for hire. He carried a tattoo for every man he’d ever killed and he had more offshore accounts than most people had dollar bills. He was very rich and very skilled and now here he was protecting his target against another threat.

The Institute was going to kill him and then kill _him_.

Alec ducks a swing from one of the men, adjusts his grip on his knife before slicing through the man’s shirt, hitting skin underneath in a shallow cut. It does nothing more than piss them both off and Alec’s well aware that the only way to win is to live.

He takes a deep breath, bellows out, “Run,” and watches in relief as he sees Magnus take off from his peripheral.

If he makes it out of this, they’ll talk. If he doesn’t, at least he made it so that Magnus would live another day, so that he wouldn’t have to see Alec get eviscerated by his own blade.

In the fight for his life-- for both their lives-- Alec knows he’s pathetically and tragically distracted.

He thinks about the past three months. Magnus was a rival, a fellow assassin who’d get any job done as long as the check cleared and the men were guilty. The first weeks had been a comedy of errors. They’d danced around each other, lost in the game between them, both determined to win this duel of wits.

But something had changed. First Magnus had earned his respect, and then Alec had started noticing things about him. The way the light hit his eyes and turned them golden. The way he carried his signature weapon, a nine millimeter pistol, with ease and elegance. There’d been barbed jokes and leading questions. 

Each day that Alec let Magnus live was another day that his team back at headquarters grew more confused, increasingly antsy.

But Alec just couldn’t do it. For fuck’s sake, they’d shared a hotel room two weeks ago and murder had been the last thing on his mind. No, Alec and Magnus hadn’t traded veiled threats. There’d been no wariness, no questioning. They hadn’t slept all night but it hadn’t been a precaution-- they’d been far too preoccupied to wonder whether the other man would stab them in the back before morning.

Which brings Alec to now. 

The life of an assassin is doomed. It’s a fact of life and something that Alec’s long since accepted.

Things are different now, though.

Foolishly, Alec had been planning to walk away from it all. Take his offshore bank accounts, grab Magnus’s hand, and run away from the only life he’d ever known.

How unfortunate that the bad guys never act according to plan.

Alec groans as the henchman lands a lucky hit that’s quickly followed by an expert stab to his thigh. As his leg collapses underneath him, Alec hears a single gunshot.

He’s in too much pain to wonder where it came from, though. He knows there’s no hope for him and that his idealized future is going up in smoke as his consciousness wavers.

He’s laying on the ground when he feels gentle hands on his face.

“Alexander, darling, stay with me. Do you hear me? You’re not allowed to leave me.”

Groggy, Alec slurs, “I thought you left. You were supposed to leave. Run, Magnus.”

“Hush, Alec. You’re safe. Aldertree’s goon is dead and it’s just you and me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Alec only hears every third word and he’s growing more disoriented by the minute. “You ran away. You left me. You’re supposed to be gone. I need you safe.”

Alec’s eyes are closed so that he doesn’t see Magnus’s lips tremble. He’s so far gone-- the man had hit an artery and he was bleeding out-- that he doesn’t feel Magnus’s shaking fingers ghosting along his cheek.

"When I look at you, I see my world and that scares the shit out of me. I learned a long time ago that friends were a liability and anything more was pure stupidity.”

He brushes Alec’s hair back, almost collapsing as he hears the ambulance’s sirens a few miles away. “But you've changed me, darling. You’ve opened my eyes. I’ve known since that first night. I’d slipped into the courtyard behind you and you didn’t hear me. I could’ve killed you then. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t understand but I left you out there, in the rain and the cold and I disappeared. And we kept running into each other and every time you smiled and every time you let me leave unscathed, my world grew a little warmer.

“You can’t die on me, Alexander. I decided a few days ago to take you and run as fast as I can as far as I can. I can’t go back to a world that’s black and white and a million shades of gray. Not when I know how extraordinary you look in color.”

A smile ghosts on Alec’s lips. Magnus leans down and chases it, terrified when Alec, always warm and verging on hot, is ice cold.

He tries to stop the bleeding but there’s just _so much_ and Magnus is perilously close to growing hysterical. It was absurd how much things could change in just a few short months but he wouldn’t change any of it. He wouldn’t change goddamn thing as long as at the end of the line, Alec and him were standing together, whole and well.

Alec goes limp just as the ambulance pulls up in the abandoned parking lot.

They work on Alec as Magnus clings to his hand, all the while shooting poisonous looks at the dead man lying just feet away.

Magnus follows Alec into the ambulance. It’s a long night and he has to explain everything a dozen times-- to police officers, claiming to be federal agents, and to Alec’s family. They’re surprised, scandalized when they realize it’s Magnus Bane calling them but they rush to the hospital all the same.

When they reach the waiting room and see Magnus sitting in a hard plastic chair, dazed and covered in their brother’s blood, the puzzle completes itself. They remember Alec’s furtive looks and the tension that hadn’t left his shoulders in months.

They see the reason for the sudden light in Alec’s eyes and know that Magnus is on their side.

When the doctor walks in and informs them that Alec is conscious and out of the woods, Magnus sways where he’s standing. He doesn’t even look at Jace or Izzy as he follows the doctor to Alec’s room.

When he crosses the threshold, he breathes for the first time in hours as he sees his love awake and alert.

“Alexander,” Magnus murmurs, gently pushing his hair off his forehead. In the next minute, he’s leaning down until their noses brush. “I love you,” he breathes.

Alec looks a little groggy but his grin is a million watts as he replies, “I love you, too.”

They share a kiss and when Magnus pulls back, Alec hums. He looks up, expression just a hint mischievous. “I seem to remember someone saying that I looked like their world.”

Magnus laughs and ignores the edge of tears in it. “Who would have thought that two rival killers for hire would fall for each other?”

Alec’s quiet for a minute as he looks at Magnus, serious. “I’ve known since the first time I saw you that something was different.”

Magnus smiles softly and kisses Alec again. They’re interrupted by a loud harrumph and pull back to see Alec’s family at the door.

What follows are three days of intense planning. Jace and Izzy scheme along with them and keep The Institute out of their hair and out of their lives. For good.

Magnus and Alec solidify their feelings, sharing intense discussions and heated debates.

Alec’s released from the hospital seventy-two hours later.

He’s never heard from again and no one can pin down the man who never left his side. When questioned, Jace and Isabelle claim ignorance. They’re eventually cleared and it’s only months later that both are honorably discharged from their organization. 

They lead a civilian life, living half a world away and forming their own families.

By a stroke of luck and sheer coincidence, they choose the same city as Magnus and Alec.

Magnus’s world grows unimaginably rich and fuller than he could’ve dreamed. When their kids ask how they meet years later, both Alec and Magnus share small smiles and just explain that they were business rivals, remaining tight lipped on the details.

Everyone lives happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr @carmenlire! I'm always accepting prompts :)


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